Leatha
Feminine
Leatha is one letter from a name that means the opposite of what most people would want. Lethe is the river of forgetting in the Greek underworld, and Letha is a name built on it. Leatha adds an a and moves toward a different Latin word entirely — laetus, glad — which is the pleasanter of the two available readings.
How old is the name Leatha?
Leatha was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Leatha alive today was born around 1933, making them about 92 years old. About 2,200 people named Leatha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Leatha most popular?
Leatha peaked in 1900, reaching #407 nationally. See the whole 1900 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Leatha
Nineteenth-century American naming produced a large number of short women's names that look classical and were often assembled rather than inherited — Letha, Leatha, Ola, Zella, Vela. Some coincided with real Greek or Latin words and some did not, and the families using them were generally not making etymological claims. What makes this one worth a second look is that the two nearest real words mean forgetting and gladness, which is an unusually wide gap for one letter to cover.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Two roads and one letter between them. Greek lethe is forgetfulness and names the underworld river whose water erased memory; it is the second half of aletheia, truth, which is literally un-forgetting. Latin laetus means glad or joyful and gives Laetitia and the Spanish Leticia. Leatha sits between the two spellings, and American records of the period contain Letha, Leatha and Leitha without distinguishing them. Neither reading can be shown.
Pronouncing Leatha
LEE-thuh
LEE-thuh, two syllables, stress at the front, the th as in think. Some say LAY-thuh, giving the ea its other value, and both are heard. The spelling supports either, so the household decides.
Nicknames for Leatha
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 1916138 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #407reached in 1900
- Change vs 1997
- −14.3%6 in 2000, from 7
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Leatha in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Laetitia in Latin — related form
- Leticia in Spanish — related form
Leathas among us
people named Leatha are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Leatha sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Lee and Thea are both usable short forms and they sound quite different.
- Six letters and two syllables, with nothing doubled and nothing silent.
- It sits among a recognizable group of names of its period without being any of them.
- The first vowel is read two ways and neither is standard, so the name is said wrong regularly.
- Letha, Leta and Leatha are all in the record and close in sound.
- One of the two possible sources is the river of forgetting, which is worth knowing before it is discovered.
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Leatha
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Leathas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Leatha are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Leatha in 2025?
- Leatha is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Leatha with classmates?
- Leatha will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More L names
The most-given names starting with L, all years combined.
Linda#902 · Lisa#987 · Laura#379 · Lauren#401 · Lillian#57 · Lori#1721 · Louise#514 · Lois#1666
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Leatha? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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